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The Downtown on-ear headphones from Philips combine an expansive sound profile with colorful styles and a relatively affordable price. The $100 Downtowns are the midprice model in Philips' CitiScape line, and I recommend them for their robust sound and noise-isolating design.

Design and features
The CitiScape Downtown series are handsome on-ear, closed-back headphones available in three colors: brown, gray, and a rather intense purple. The build integrity feels robust thanks to a padded cloth wrapper covering the metal headband, and thickly padded cushions line the swiveling earcups. The memory foam conforms to the shape of your ears to hush external noise, and it performs well.

The form-fitting pads also limit the amount of sound leaking out of the headphones that may annoy neighbors in close proximity--that's great, but the tight seal also made my ears damp with sweat after just a half an hour of use. Regardless, a gentle bend of the metal headband goes a long way in reducing the pressure.

The CitiScape Downtowns use very little plastic in their design (mostly in the earcups) and therefore avoid the plastic creaks of competing headphones that sometimes cost three times as much.

Ex-movie theater projectionist Steve Guttenberg has also worked as a high-end audio salesman, and as a record producer. Steve currently reviews audio products for CNET and works as a freelance writer for Home Theater, Inner Fidelity, Tone Audio, and Stereophile.
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